The present invention relates to a needle protection device used with a vial that contains medicament to be injected to a patient, and more particularly for preventing further exposure of the contaminated needle once the medicament in the vial has been injected to the patient and the needle has been withdrawn from the patient.
In the medical field, needle protection devices are well known. A number of such devices, assigned to the assignee of the instant invention by inventor Hollister, reference the use of a needle protection device to cover a contaminated needle. These include U.S. Pat. No. 4,982,842 that discloses a universal safety adapter for use with a syringe and a needle assembly, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,139,489, 5,154,285 and 5,277,311, all of which disclose, among other things, the use of a needle protection device with a VACUTAINER double ended needle. Other Hollister patents that describe needle protection devices include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,232,454, 5,232,455, 5,423,765, 5,615,771 and 5,649,622.
There is currently in the market a number of vials, presealed with medicament such as for example heparin, that are to be injected to a patient. The use of vials that contain medicament is more efficient in some ways than the use of a syringe insofar as the amount of medicament stored in a vial has been premeasured and, since the vial is sealed, the problem of contamination substantially eliminated. Yet the fact remains that in order to inject a patient with the medicament of a vial, a needle has to be used. Oftentimes such needle is mounted to the vial during manufacturing of the vial. Examples of such needle mounted vials include those used with the Tubex and Carpuject applicators. Yet none of these vials configured with a needle has any prophylactic device that will prevent the exposure of the contaminated needle from the environment once the medicament in the vial has been injected to the patient and the needle withdrawn from the patient.
To provide protection against accidental pricking by a contaminated needle attached to a vial, a collar that is configured to slidably fit to the needle hub of the vial is inserted over the needle hub before the needle cover is removed from the needle. The collar has extending to its lower side a number of finger extensions each of which has a hook-like gripper for mating with the bottom portion of the needle hub of the vial. Thus, when the collar is moved to the appropriate distance along the needle hub, the finger extensions would snap over the edge of the bottom portion of the needle hub so that the hooks at the end of the finger extensions will grasp onto the bottom surface of the hub. The collar, once thus secured, nonetheless is rotatable about the hub of the vial.
A housing flexibly extending from the top of the collar provides the enclosure for covering the needle extending from the vial, once the contaminated needle is withdrawn from the patient and the housing is pivoted into alignment along the longitudinal axis of the vial. A hook mechanism inside the housing locks onto the needle once the housing is pivoted into alignment with the vial and the hook mechanism comes into contact with the needle and snaps thereover.
Instead of a collar, a second embodiment of the instant invention has a non-closed substantially circular base that has two arms or ears extending away from the base. These two arms coact with each other when they are pressed towards each other. One of the arms has a hooked extension that interacts with the blunt extension of the other arm so that when the two arms are pressed together, the hooked extension will snap over the blunt extension and the two arms are interlocked. This embodiment of the instant invention is used for those vials which needle hub substantially smoothly extends from the medicament containing body. The base of the second embodiment device is therefore configured to fit over the body of the vial so that, once positioned appropriately onto the body, the arms of the base are squeezed to lock the base into position around the vial.
A housing that is similar to that used in the first embodiment is flexibly connected to a neck extending from the base. As before, to cover a contaminated needle, the housing is pivoted into alignment along the longitudinal axis of the vial to which the base is mounted about, so that the needle is covered by the housing. An integral hook in the housing grasps onto the needle and prevents any relative movement between the needle and the housing once the housing has been pivoted sufficiently to allow the hook to snap over the needle.
It is therefore an objective of the present invention to provide an add-on device that prevents a contaminated needle extending from a vial from being exposed to the environment.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide a protective device that is fixedly attached to a vial once it is fitted to the vial.
It is moreover an objective of the present invention to provide an inexpensive way of retrofitting a conventional vial such that protection is provided therefor to prevent accidental needle pricks from a needle attached thereto.